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thefederalistfreestyle:

Don’t let Donald Trump’s antics distract you from what’s really important (Vox):

Here are a few news stories that broke between the time I left work a little early on Friday afternoon and the time my toddler went down for his midday nap on Saturday:

The Hamilton blow-up — because it’s easy to understand, bizarre, and connects with a pop culture phenomenon — has naturally ended up getting the bulk of the news pickup. One potential reason is that Trump’s tweets are public, whereas it took diligent reporting by the Washington Post to get the hotel story. The idea is that other prestigious outlets may be disinclined to pay attention to a story the Post “owns” and to give due credit to its significance.

Meanwhile, a second-order controversy even broke out among the people I follow on Twitter as to whether the Hamilton audience booing Mike Pence in some sense played into Trump’s hands.

rivendellrose: “barbaricyip: “ For those following along at home: Donald “I never settle” McJonald (he settles all the time) settled the Trump University fraud lawsuits with a payment of $25 million and an additional $1 million to the state of New...

rivendellrose:

barbaricyip:

For those following along at home:

Donald “I never settle” McJonald (he settles all the time) settled the Trump University fraud lawsuits with a payment of $25 million and an additional $1 million to the state of New York (for being a fraud) (and violating a whole heckity ton of education laws).

Settlements are often understood as more or less an admission of guilt, but Donny J’s still defending his innocence bc apparently that’s what would be proven after the “years of litigation” he’s purportedly trying to avoid.

Sources: 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/source-trump-nearing-settlement-in-trump-university-fraud-cases/2016/11/18/8dc047c0-ada0-11e6-a31b-4b6397e625d0_story.html

http://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-is-in-advanced-talks-to-settle-trump-university-fraud-allegations-1479488654

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38021820

This makes me wish Tumblr allowed sizing up text super huge. 

HEY EVERYBODY, THE FUCKING PRESIDENT-ELECT ADMITTED TO FRAUD WORTH $25 MILLION. ‘CAUSE HE’S A FUCKING FRAUD, AND ALSO A LOSER.

But don’t worry, he’s busy on Twitter talking about how the Hamilton audience hurt his pissy little running mate’s feelings by booing him. 

quigonejinn:

this morning, i thought i’d finally stopped screaming about donald trump

this morning, i found out he fucking nominated jeff sessions to be attorney general, a man who was so blatantly racist and so hostile to basic democracy that he couldn’t get confirmed to be a federal judge under reagan in 1986

a white male senator from alabama whose signature issue has been racist suppression of black voters for over 30 years

who claimed the NAACP and the ACLU tried to shove voting rights reform “down the throats of people”

who called a black attorney boy on multiple occasions

who said that the kkk was okay with him until he found out they smoked pot

and then said well, it was obviously a joke

and he is going to be following the first two african-american attorney generals in the history of the united states, with the second being loretta lynch, the black female attorney general who gave this address just this fucking may about what the justice department was doing to fight HB2

welcome to trump’s america, every goddamn person who didn’t see a difference between hillary clinton and donald

ladyofthehouse:

The thermostat consensus seems to be that I’m a tough cold-livin’ beast. I’d drop it to 50 at night, but it’s not good for the bunny to let it go below 60. And he’s got fur, so whatever. He’s just being a diva.

Anywho.

On Trump’s tweets about Pence seeing Hamilton & the booing. THAT is what a carefully orchestrated PR stunt looks like, you know, to give somebody something else to talk about other than settling a lawsuit out of court, for 65% of the asked award, and essentially admitting having committed large-scale fraud. Basically, it’s, “Let’s send a known homophobe, misogynist, and HIV epidemic-causing asshole to the heart of the gay theater world in one of the most liberal cities in the US and see what happens. Prooooobably something we can talk about instead of the settlement that’s coming down.”

That said, it’s still okay to be pissed at Trump’s tweets, Pence leaving, and tourists booing him. It’s still cool to laud the cast for their amazing statements and performance.

Here’s a thing to be supremely pissed about. The PR decision that was made that allowed a person who actively legislated against the lives of the people in that cast just paid them to sing and dance for him.

That is some insulting, disgusting, humiliating sh*t right there.

But they put on a hell of a show and let the crowd do what needed to be done, then said their piece with grace the coming administration doesn’t understand on an elemental level.

Why? Because theater is full of dissidents. Always has been. Theater *is* social commentary. Always has been. There’s always been booing, fruit throwing, and people getting kicked out of countries for agitating the people in power. Theater is and always has been part of the resistance. *If* it makes you smile, that’s a bonus.

Blah, blah, my teachers were radical street performers in the type of theater nobody can stomach watching, blah.

–TLOTH

This Is Not Normal

joshuafoust.com

s-leary:

attackoftheskydancers:

azspot:

  • Using your Presidential transition website to promote your own business properties is not normal.
  • Calling for millions of federal employees to sign nondisclosure agreements apart from standard government forms is not normal.
  • Blasting journalists with product placements for the labels your child, who is on your transition team, is wearing is not normal.
  • Having a wide range of senior figures in your own political party distance themselves from your transition team, citing the profound irregularity of it and worrying about future ugliness, is not normal.
  • Placing your children in charge of your business empire, then placing them on your transition team, then seeking top secret security clearances for them, is not normal. The conflicts of interest that this represents are almost too many to count, but at a basic level: you do not give someone with a financial interest to work against U.S. policy access to sensitive information — at all, ever.
  • Putting one’s children into senior positions of a government is the behavior of a banana republic, not a constitutional democracy with strong institutions. This is not normal.
  • For a president who ran on his business acumen to refuse to disclose his taxes to the public, which in turn denies anyone the ability to see if financial conflicts of interest are driving his policy decisions, is not normal.
  • Asking if he can decline the President’s salary, so as to avoid paying taxes, is not normal.
  • Owing hundreds of millions of dollars in business debt to a foreign bank and refusing to fully divest yourself from those finances is not normal.
  • Ascending to the White House while your eldest son, who is also on your transition team, and for whom you also seek a top-secret clearance, seeks out seven-digit business deals in Russia, is not normal. When Russia then names the President elect an “honorary Cossack,” it is not normal.
  • Asking a hostile foreign intelligence agency to hack into the emails of your opponent in the campaign is not normal. Refusing to comment while they expand those hacks into other institutions is not normal. Watching that same government’s propaganda network dramatically change its tone in order to benefit the incoming president is not normal. That this foreign government is also the subject of numerous investigations into the President elect’s improper business conduct is not normal.
  • Threatening to cut off Europe from NATO if payment is not received, like a gangster demanding protection money, in a way that benefits said foreign government, is not normal.
  • Chanting for the summary imprisonment of your political opponent despite repeated conclusions that she has committed no crime is not normal. Refusing to back down from that call to summarily imprison her is not normal. Essentially suggesting a show trial before you’ve even assumed office is not normal.
  • Hiring an avowed white supremacist and proud antisemite to be the chief of strategy at the White House is not normal. That the new White House chief strategist has bragged, openly, of his desire to destroy the United States is not normal. That the cofounder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center raised money for this is not normal.
  • Staff participating in authoritarian victim-blaming and antisemitic conspiracism is not normal. Collaborating with cable news channels in that antisemitic conspiracy about protests is not normal.
  • When one of the new administration’s most senior proxies and spokesmen calmly discusses committing war crimes in the Middle East, it is not normal. When he is shortlisted for the Department of State — despite lobbying for terrorists who killed Americans, despotic regimes in the Middle East, and the tyrannical government of Venezuela — it is not normal.
  • When that proxy is simply following in the footsteps of the new President-elect, who has called for reinstating torture and summarily executing the families of alleged terrorists, it is not normal.
  • The leading candidate for the department of education (who himself has no background as an educator or in education policy) openly suggesting to censor speech on universities is not normal. Nominating an oil executive as the Secretary of the Interior is not normal. Nominating a climate change denialist funded by the oil industry to run the EPA is not normal. When the leading candidate for Defense Secretary having a long history of openly racist comments toward his own staff it is not normal.
  • The FBI intervening decisively in the last week of the election to alter its outcome for one candidate is not normal. But the FBI refusing to address the president elect’s violation of sanctions against a communist country is also not normal.
  • When a woman accuses a presidential candidate of having raped her as a child, but then refuses to go forward with her allegations because of a barrage of death threats yet still receives almost no media coverage, it is not normal.
  • It is not normal for a president-elect to have 75 pending lawsuits against him, ranging from business fraud to illegal hiring practices. It is not normal for his lawyers to demand those lawsuits be delayed until after his inauguration for not discernable reason other than to retreat behind the immunity of the office.
  • Relentlessly attacking the legitimacy of the media (to be distinguished from criticizing media conduct) is not normal. Threatening to sue the media because you don’t like being criticized is not normal.
  • Being so steeped in the language of fascism that you and and your staff mirror Hitler (“make the trains run on time“), appeasing Hitler (“America First“), or Mussolini (“drain the swamp“) is not normal.

Trying to appoint an attorney general who was once called “too racist to be a judge” is not normal

Speaking with foreign heads of state on unsecured personal phones is not normal.

Speaking to said heads of state but not contacting the transition teams of federal agencies is not normal.

Schmoozing foreign delegations and persuading them to stay at your mega-expensive hotel in the capital is not normal.

Demanding that the cast of a musical apologize for politely addressing the VP-elect after the audience booed him is not normal.

roane72:

knee-uh:

This administration is going to give us plenty of irrelevant stories like the one from Hamilton last night. But we need to make sure we don’t get distracted from the stuff that really matters.

Like the fact that Ivanka, who is supposedly going to be controlling her father’s company in a “blind trust”, and her husband attended a meeting between her father and the Japanese prime minister.  (x)

Or that Trump settled the Trump University fraud case for $25 million. (x)

Or that foreign diplomats are attending events at Trump’s newly opened D.C. hotel.  (x)

true. The Trump administration was indulging in its own form of theater this weekend.

parliamentrook:

samanthabeeismyqueen:

Mike Pence attended Hamilton and the cast had something to say to him: “We are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us.” (x)

image

“You know, we have a guest in the audience this evening. And Vice President-elect Pence, I see you walking out, but I hope you will hear us just a few more moments. There’s nothing to boo here, ladies and gentlemen. There’s nothing to boo here. We’re all here sharing a story of love. We have a message for you, sir. We hope that you will hear us out.”

“Vice President-elect Pence, we welcome you, and we truly thank you for joining us here at ‘Hamilton: An American Musical.’ We really do. We, sir, we are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, our planet, our children, our parents, or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights, sir. But we truly hope this show has inspired you to uphold our American values and work on behalf of all of us. All of us. Again, we truly thank you truly for (sharing) this show, this wonderful American story told by a diverse group of men and women of different colors, creeds and orientations.”

That was nowhere near harassment and that is nowhere near appropriate for the president fucking elect to say oh my god.

micdotcom:

Donald Trump reportedly taps Jeff Sessions for Attorney General

President-elect Donald Trump is set to nominate Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., as attorney general, Bloomberg reported Friday morning, marking the first major cabinet nomination of the Trump administration. Back in the 1980s, Sessions was not confirmed to a federal judgeship thanks to racist comments he reportedly made about African-Americans.